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THE  GOVERNMENT 

OF 

SIR  EDMUND  ANDROS 

OVER 

NEW   ENGLAND, 

IN 

1688    AND     1689. 

Read  before  the  New  York   Historical  Society,  on 
Tuesday  Evening,   4tf   December,    1866, 

BV 

John  Romeyn  Brodhead. 


MORRISANIA,  N.   T. 
1867. 


BRAtlSTREFT    VRF.SS. 


At  a  stated  meeting  of  the  New  York  Historical 
Society,  held  in  its  Hall,  on  Tuesday  evening,  Decem- 
ber 4th,  1866, 

The  paper  of  the  evening,  entitled  "  The  Admin'ntra- 
"  tion  of  Sir  Edmund  Andros  in  New  England  in  1688- 
"  89,"  was  read  by  Mr.  John  Romeyn  Brodhead,  Do- 
mestic Corresponding  Secretary. 

On  its  conclusion,  Mr.  Erastus  C.  Benedict,  after 
some  remarks,  submitted  the  following  resolution,  which 
was  adopted  : 

Reso/'ved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Society  be  presented 
to  Mr.  Brodhead  for  his  interesting  and  able  paper  read 
this  evening,  and  that  a  copy  be  requested  for  the  archives 
of  the  Society. 

Extract  from  the  Minutes. 

Andrew  Warner, 

Recording  Secretary. 


ERRATA. 

Page  7,  thirteenth  line  from  bottom,  for  "executor," 
read  "  executer." 

Page  lo,  tenth  line  from  bottom,  for  "place  as  a 
"  Lieutenant,"  read  "  place  as  Lieutenant." 

Page  26,  seventh  line  from  top,  for  '*  possessed,"  read 
"  professed." 


ANDROS  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


My  theme  to-night  is  The  Administration  of 
Sir  Edmund  Andi'os,  whom  James  the  Second 
had  made  his  Governor  of  New  England,  in 
1688. 

The  name  "  New  England  in  America^''  origin- 
ally suggested  by  Captain  John  Smith,  in  1614, 
was  royally  given  by  James  the  First,  in  his 
Patent  of  162U.  That  Patent  called  "  New  En- 
"  gland  ^^  all  the  North  American  territory  lying 
between  the  fortieth  and  forty-eighth  degrees  of 
latitude,  and  extending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  •  over  the  whole  of  which  the  British 
King  assumed  Sovereignty.  French  Canada  and 
Dutch  New  Netherland  were  .included  within 
James's  Patent.  The  latter  Province — now  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania — had  been 
first  discovered  by  the  Dutch  in  1609 ;  and  it 
was  held  and  nurtured  by  them  until  1664,  when 
they  were  dispossessed  by  the  English — an  event 
of  which  the  New  York  Historical  Society 
commemorated  the  Second  Centennial  Anniver- 
sary, two  years  ago. 

For  a  long  time,  however,  this  royal  "  N  ew 
"  England  "  of  James  the  First,  existed  only  nom- 
inally or  historically,  and  not  really  as  an  entire 
British  dependency.  It  was  sub-divided  into  va- 
rious Colonies,  each  of  which  had  a  distinct 
1 


name  : — consisting  of  Plymouth,  Massachusetts 
Bay,  Rhode  Lsland,  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire 
and  Maine.  These  several  Colonies  had  separate 
Governments,  all  of  which  derived  their  authority 
directly  or  indirectly  from  the  Sovereign  Crown 
of  England.  Plymouth  had  a  Patent,  but  no 
Koyal  Charter.  Massachusetts  Bay,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Connecticut,  were  chartered  Royal 
Corporations.  New  Hampshire  had  no  charter 
but  a  Governor  and  Counsellors  appointed  by  the 
King,  and  an  Assembly  elected  by  her  inhabit- 
ant.«.  Maine  was  governed  partly  as  a  Ducal 
dependency  of  New  York,  and  partly  by  the  Cor- 
poration of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

Under  her  charter,  granted  by  King  Charles 
"  the  Martyr,'"  the  Royal  corporation  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  was  perverted  into  a  Sectarian  Oli- 
garchy, composed  of  Puritan  church  members, 
and  wholly  controlled  by  them. 

That  Puritan  oligarchy  never  allowed  its  sub- 
jects a  really  Popular  Assembly.  It  was  too  anx- 
ious to  keep  all  local  authority  in  its  own  hands; 
and  it  did  so,  until  its  Sovereign's  charter, 
granted  in  1G29,  was  legally  cancelled  in  1684. 
According  to  the  English  law  of  that  time,  the 
Royal  power,  which  had  been  delegated  to  the 
anniliilated  corporation,  passed  back  at  once  to 
the  English  Crown.  This  supreme,  original 
fountain  of  English  Colonial  authority,  might 
either  create  a  new  corporation,  to  govern  Mas- 
sachusetts under  another  Royal  Charter,  as 
Charles  the  First  had  done,  or  else  commission  a 
Royal  Governor  and  Counsellors  to  administer 
the  affairs  of  that  colony,  either  with  a  pop- 
ular Assembly,  as  in  New  Hampshire  and  Vir- 
ginia, or,  without  such  an  Assembly,  if  the  Sov- 
ereign should  think  it  most  expedient. 

While    Duke    of  York,    James    the    Second 


had  granted  a  popular  Assemblv  to  New  York, 
of  which  he  was  then  the  Proprietor.  But  when 
he  became  King,  James  abolished  that  Assem- 
bly ;  and  in  June,  168C,  he  commissioned  Colonel 
Thomas  Dongan  to  be  the  Governor  of  his  Royal 
Province,  whom  he  authorized,  with  certain 
counsellors,  also  named  by  himself,  to  make  all 
local  laws.  This  was  a  very  imperious  exercise 
of  the  Sovereign's  prerogative.  Such  a  commis- 
sion has  been  charged  to  be  "  arbitrary "  and 
"  illegal.''  Yet  it  was  no  more  arbitrary  in  fact, 
than  if  the  English  King  had  sealed  a  charter 
under  which  New  York  should  be  governed  by 
a  corporate  oligarchy,  as  Massachusetts  had 
long  been  ruled.  There  was  no  more  idea  of  a 
popular  assembly  in  the  abrogated  Massachusetts 
Royal  charter  of  1629,  than  in  the  New  York 
Royal  commission  of  1686.  Both  instruments 
were  legally  perfect;  for  they  had  both  passed 
the  talismanic  great  seal  of  England,  which  was 
essential  to  the  validity  of  any  English  Patent. 
The  only  question  about  either  of  them  was 
whether  a  King  of  England  could  govern  an  En- 
glish American  Colony,  wWiout  an  Assembly 
which  represented  all  the  inliabitants  of  that  Col- 
ony. It  was  certain  that  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  Massachusetts  had  been  so  governed,  un- 
der a  Royal  charter  from  Charles  the  First.  It 
was  reasonable  that  New  York  anight  be  so  gov- 
erned under  a  Boyal  commission  from  James  the 
Second. 

The  same  month — June,  1686 — that  James  thus 
commissioned  Dongan  to  be  the  Governor  of  his 
Royal  Province  of  New  Y''ork,  he  commissioned, 
in  like  manner,  and  with  similar  powers,  Sir  Ed- 
mund Andres — who,  for  several  years,  had  been 
his  Ducal  Deputy  in  that  Province — to  be  the 
Governor  of  his  Royal  "  Dominion  of  New  Eng- 


"  land."  This  "  Dominion"  was  meant  to  include 
all  the  British-American  territory  North-east  of 
New  York.  Andros  accordingly  came  to  Boston 
in  December,  1686,  and  assumed  the  government 
of  Massachusetts.  In  a  little  while,  he  extended 
his  authority  over  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Ply- 
mouth, Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut,  which, 
with  Massachusetts,  then  formed  "  New  Eng- 
"  land.'"  By  the  end  of  the  year  1687,  Andros 
in  New  England,  Dongan  in  New  York,  the  Pro- 
prietors of  New  Jersey,  and  William  Penn,  were 
the  only  immediate  representatives  of  the  author- 
ity of  the  British  crown.  North  of  the  fortieth 
degree  of  latitude,  in  America. 

During  the  summer  of  1687,  Denonville,  the 
French  Governor  of  Canada,  at  the  head  of  a 
large  force,  invaded  the  Seneca  country  of  New 
Y^ork.  Dongan  quickly  reported  this  to  King 
James,  who  at  once  declared  his  sovereignty  over 
the  five  Iroquois  nations,  and  directed  his  Gov- 
ernor to  protect  them  as  his  subjects.  While 
doing  this,  the  King  also  authorized  New  York 
to  call  on  the  neighboring  English  Colonies  for 
assistance.  At  the  same  time,  James  agreed  with 
Louis  the  Fourteenth  that  no  English  or  French 
subordinate  commander  in  America  should  invade 
the  territories  of  either  King,  or  commit  any  hos- 
tility against  the  subjects  of  either  of  them  there, 
until  the  first  of  January,  1689.  Before  that 
day,  it  was  hoped  that  a  satisfiictory  boundary 
line,  defining  their  respective  Colonial  posses- 
sions, would  be  arranged  by  a  treaty  between  the 
two  European  monarchs. 

Of  all  the  sovereigns  of  England,  James  the 
Second  had  the  most  accurate  knowledge  of  her 
trans-Athmtic  Colonies.  For  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century  after  the  Kestoration,  he  had  been  the 
proprietor  of  a  large  American  Province,  under 


his  brother's  Royal  Patent.  In  the  details  of  its 
administration,  he  had  always  taken  a  lively  per- 
sonal interest ;  and  with  his  own  hand,  he  had 
written  many  letters  to  his  deputies  in  New  York, 
which,  at  any  rate,  had  the  unusual  merit  of  di- 
rectness and  precision.  James's  terse  autographs 
were  not  constrained  by  any  official  "  red  tape  ;" 
and  far  more  clearly  than  his  Secretary's  verbose 
phraseology,  they  uttered  his  own  imperious 
will. 

With  this  long  apprenticeship  in  Colonial  af- 
fairs, James  became  King  of  England  and  her 
dependencies  early  in  1685.  The  domestic  affairs 
of  his  realm  for  some  time  occupied  his  attention 
almost  entirely.  The  rebellions,  under  Monmouth 
in  England  and  Argyle  in  Scotland,  having  been 
forcibly  put  down,  the  triumphant  British  sove- 
reign saw  his  legitimate  authority  confirmed,  and 
he  soon  assumed  powers  which  did  not  belong  to 
his  Royal  office. 

In  the  spring  of  1688,  James — too  active  to 
drift,  always  wishing  to  row  and  to  steer — was 
practically  governing  Great  Britain  almost  as 
absolutely  as  Louis  was  ruling  France.  The 
great  object  of  James  w^as  to  substitute  his  own 
Roman  Catholic  faith  in  place  of  the  Protestant 
lawful  religion  of  England  and  Scotland.  To 
this  end,  he  dispensed  with  Statutes,  forfeited 
the  charters  of  corporations,  and  delayed  sum- 
moning a  British  Parliament.  The  far-off  Eng- 
lish Colonies  he  insisted  on  governing,  by  his 
royal  prerogative  alone,  as  dependencies  of  the 
British  crown,  and  not  as  constituencies  of  the 
British  Empire.  So  had  his  predecessors  deter- 
mined ;  so  had  English  Courts  awarded ;  so 
were  most  Englishmen  willing  that  those  Colo- 
nies should  be  governed.  All  Colonial  charters 
had  been  granted  by  the  English  crown  alone  ; 


and  none  had  questioned  its  authority.  The 
colonial  system  of  James  the  Second  was  merely 
an  arbitrary  exercit^e  of  his  acknowledged  pre- 
rogative. He  allowed  a  popular  Assembly  to 
Virginia,  and  he  denied  it  to  New  England  and 
to  New  York.  Yet,  this  system  of  James  was 
in  many  respects  tolerant  and  equitable.  It 
carefully  provided  for  the  happiness  and  pros- 
perity o'f  all  classes  of  inhabitants  in  New  York 
and  New  England,  who,  while  they  were  not 
allowed  popular  representation  in  local  Assem- 
blies, were  guaranteed  equal  political  rights  as 
English  Colonial  subjects,  and  as  large  religious 
liberty  as  Englishmen  in  England. 

Bigoted  Koman  Catholic,  and  tyrannical  as  he 
was,  James  had  nevertheless  one  characteristic 
which  shone  out  in  vivid  contrast  to  his  others. 
He  was  u  much  more  patriotic  Englishman  than 
his  witty  brother  Charles  had  ever  been.  Anx- 
ious for  the  friendship  of  Louis,  the  duller  James 
scorned  to  betray  England,  or  any  of  her  de- 
pendencies, to  France.  Hardly  had  he  directed 
Dongan  to  prevent  all  hostilities  against  French- 
American  subjects,  when  he  Avas  convinced  that 
Louis  had  ol)tained  tlie  advantage.  Canada  was 
under  one  Governor-General,  whose  sole  mind 
executed  all  his  masters  orders.  The  English 
Colonies,  on  the  other  hand,  had  different  local 
governments,  which  did  not  always  act  in  har- 
mony. James,  therefore,  determined  to  consoli- 
date his  North  American  territories,  as  far  as 
convenient,  under  one  vice-regal  administration. 
By  this  means  he  hoped  to  secure  them  against 
their  restless  Canadian  neighbor,  and  at  the 
same  time  strengthen  his  own  arbitrary  rule. 
Dongan  had  pleaded  that  Connecticut  and  the 
Jerseys  should  be  annexed  to  New  York.  But 
Connecticut  was  now  a  part  of  New  England, 


under  the  government  of  Andros.  The  Propri- 
etors of  New  Jersey  had  just  surrendered  their 
authority  to  the  King.  Instead  of  annexing 
Connecticut  and  the  Jerseys  to  New  York,  as 
Dongan  had  urged,  James  resolved  to  add  New 
York  and  the  Jerseys  to  his  "  Dominion  of  New 
Enghind,'^  Pennsylvania  was  not  included  in 
this  arrangement,  because  her  Quaker  Proprietor 
was  too  useful  an  instrument  for  the  King  to 
offend.  But  all  the  rest  of  the  titular  New  Eng- 
land of  James  the  First,  excepting  French  Can- 
ada, was  now  united,  for  the  first  time,  as  a 
political  whole,  under  one  Colonial  Governor 
appointed  by  James  the  Second. 

This  determination  must  displace  either  An- 
dros or  Dongan.  Both  had  been  twice  commis- 
sioned by  James;  first  when  Duke  of  York,  and 
again  when  King  of  England.  Of  the  two,  An- 
dros had  the  longest  experience  in  government, 
and  perhaps  the  best  administrative  talent.  He 
had  already  governed  New  York  for  several 
years  ;  and  his  vigorous  rule  in  New  England 
was  now  giving  much  satisfaction  to  his  arbitrary 
Sovereign.  Although  "fond  of  prelacy,"'  Sir 
Edmund  was  not  a  Roman  Catholic.  But  he  had 
proved  himself  to  be  an  uncompromising  executor 
of  all  the  Royal  commrrnds.  An  accomplished 
soldier,  Andros  naturally  made  prompt  and  im- 
plicit obedience  his  standard  of  duty. 

On  the  other  hand,  Dongan — likewise  a  soldier, 
yet  more  a  patrician — was  an  Irish  Roman  Cath- 
olic, a  nephew  of  Talbot,  Earl  of  Tyrconnell,  and 
the  presumptive  heir  of  his  own  elder  brother, 
theintensely  loyal  Irish  Earl  of  Limerick.  But 
Dongan  had  more  independence  of  character 
than  Andros.  He  had  foiled  and  embittered 
Penn,  and  had  angered  Perth  and  Melfort  of 
New  Jersey,  in  the  interest  of  New  York.     All 


these  were  powerful  courtiers  at  Whitehall. 
The  impulsive  Governor  of  New  York  had  been 
sharply  censured  by  the  King  of  France,_  for 
maintaining  the  King  of  England^s  antagonistic 
authority  over  the  Iroquois.  In  a  word,  Dongan 
had  shown  more  official  "zeal"  than  an  experi- 
enced politician  in  high  place — then  and  now — 
would  have  considered  expedient  in  a  subor- 
dinate. So  James  superseded  his  Roman  Catho- 
lic Governor  of  New  York,  and  issued  a  new 
commission,  making  the  Protestant,  Sir  Edmund 
Andros,  Governor  General  of  his  "  Dominion  of 
"  New  England,"  which  now  included  all  the 
territory  (except  Pennsylvania)  between  Mary- 
land and  Canada. 

The  recall  of  Dongan  gratified  the  vanity  of 
Louis,  whom  he  had  olfended.  But  Louis  had 
no  reason  to  be  pleased  that  James  had  appointed 
Andros  to  govern  the  consolidated  British  Amer- 
ican Colonies,  which,  it  was  understood  in  Lon- 
don, would  "  1)e  terrible  to  the  French,  and  make, 
"  them  proceed  with  more  caution  than  they  have 
"  lately  done."  However  disagreeably  this 
measure  of  her  King  aii'ected  New  York,  it  was 
certainly  patriotic  and  wise,  in  respect  to  the 
colonial  interests  of  England  in  America,  as  op- 
posed to  those  of  France. 

The  instructions  which  the  King  gave  to  An- 
dros with  his  new  commission,  named  forty -two 
of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  the  several  colo- 
nies now  forming  his  "  Dominion  of  New  En- 
"  gland  "  to  be  its  Counsellors.  Those  from  New 
York  were  Anthony  Brockholls,  I'rcderick  Phil- 
lipse,  Jervis  Baxter,  Stephen  Van  Cortlandt,  John 
Spragg,  John  Younge,  Nicholas  Bayard,  and 
John  Pahner,  nearly  a  fifth  of  the  whole  num- 
ber. By  the  advice  and  consent  of  a  majority  of 
the  Couusellorp,  of  whom  five  were  an  ordinary 


quorum,  the  Governor  could  make  laws  and  im- 
pose taxes  throughout  the  Dominion.  The  Pro- 
vincial seal  of  New  York  was  directed  to  be 
broken,  and  that  of  New  England  to  be  there- 
after used  in  its  place.  Liberty  of  conscience, 
pursuant  to  the  King's  Declaration  of  April,  1C87, 
was  to  be  allowed  "  to  all  persons,  so  they  be 
"contented  with  a  quiet  and  peaceable  enjoy- 
"  ment  of  it."'  No  press  was  to  be  used,  nor  book  to 
be  printed,  without  the  Governor's  license.  But 
this  was  no  novelty  ;  for  press  censorship  had  long 
been  the  darling  Puritan  practice  in  Massachusetts. 

Such  were  the  most  prciuiinent  Instructions  of 
James  the  Second  to  Andros,  for  the  Government 
of  his  Dominion  of  New  England.  As  the  terri- 
tory of  that  Dominion  was  now  so  vast,  it  was 
necessary  that  some  one  should  be  appointed  to 
act  for  the  Governor,  in  case  of  his  absence  or 
death.  Captain  Francis  Nicholson  was  accord- 
ingly commissioned  by  the  King  to  be  his  Lieuten- 
ant Governor  of  New  England.  No  place  was 
fixed  by  the  Sovereign  as  the  seat  of  Government 
of  his  American  Dominion.  It  might  be  at  Bos- 
ton, or  New  York,  or  elsewhere  within  that  Do- 
minion, at  the  discretion  of  Andros ;  [New  York 
Colonial  Documents,  III.,  536-550,  ix,  372.) 

When  Dongan  was  notified  of  these  arrange- 
ments, so  unexpected  by  himself,  he  prepared  to 
surrender  his  government  of  New  York  to  An- 
dros. Among  other  things,  it  was  ordered  in 
Council,  that  all  Spanish  Indians  who  had  been 
made  slaves  within  the  Province,  should  be  set 
free,  if  they  could  "  give  an  account  of  their  Chris- 
"  tian  faith,  and  say  the  Lord's  prayer."  The 
last  law  passed  by  Dongan  and  his  New  York 
Council,  on  the  second  of  August,  1688,  was  "to 
"prohibit  shoemakers  from  using  the  mystery  of 
« tanning  hides."  The  last  patent,  under  the  Pro- 
2 


10 


vincial  seal  of  New  York,  was  issued  by  its 
Governor,  on  the  same  day,  to  the  Town  of  Hunt- 
ing^ton,  on  Long  Island. 

Meanwhile,  Andros  had  heard  of  his  promo- 
tion over  Dongan,  of  whom  he  was  jealous, 
and  anxiously  awaited  the  arrival  of  his  new 
commission  at  Boston.  The  news  of  its  coining 
quickly  spread  ;  and  Attorney  General  Graham 
of  New  York,  who  had  been  an  old  ship  com- 
panion of  Sir  Edmund,  hurried  eastward  to\yards 
the  rising  sun,  which  radiantly  promoted  him  to 
be  the  Attorney  General  of  the  whole  Dominion 
of  New  England.  John  Palmer,  one  of  the 
Judges  of  New  York,  whom  Dongan  had  sent 
with  his  dispatches  to  London,  in  the  previous 
autumn,  now  returned  to  Boston  ;  and  Andros  at 
once  made  him  a  fourth  Associate  Justice  of  the 
Superior  Court  of  the  enlarged  Dominion,  along 
with  Joseph  Dudle3\  and  William  Stoughton, 
and  Peter  Bulkley,  who  had  been  its  three 
Judges  since  1G87  ;  {Col.  Doc.  III.,  421,428- 
478;  Valentine's  Manual  for  1S02,  741;  Pal- 
mer's Impartial  Account,  22  ;  Hutchinson^ s  Mas- 
sachusetts, I,  362-371.) 

At  length,  on  the  nineteenth  of  July,  1688,  the 
Governor  GeneraPs  new  commission  was  pub- 
lished, with  great  parade,  from  the  Balcony  of 
the  Boston  Town  House.  Nicholson,  at  the  same 
time,  was  installed  in  his  place  as  a  Lieutenant 
Governor  of  the  whole  Dominion  of  New  En- 
gland. A  fortnight  afterwards  Andros  set  out 
for  New  York,  attended  by  several  of  his  coun- 
sellors, to  resume  its  government,  together  with 
that  of  New  Jersey. 

On  Saturday,  the  eleventh  of  August,  1688, 
Andros  reached  the  metropolis,  where  he  was  re- 
ceived by  Colonel  Bayard's  Regiment  of  militia 
infantry,  and  a  troop  of  horse.     The  Governor 


11 


General's  commission  was  read  in  Fort  James, 
and  then  published  at  the  City  Hall.  The  Pro- 
vincial seal  of  New  York  was  received  from 
Dongan,  and  *'  defaced  and  broken  in  council," 
according  to  the  King's  order.  In  its  stead,  the 
great  seal  of  New  England,  with  its  motto  from 
Claudian,  '■^  Nunquamlibertas  gratior  extat"  was 
thenceforth  to  be  used  througliout  the  Dominion. 
{Vcdentine's  Manual  for  1862,  738,739;  N.  T. 
Col.  Doc.  Ill,  546-567.)  The  same  day  a  procla- 
mation was  issued,  continuing  all  persons  in  of- 
fice, and  directing  all  former  taxes  to  be  col- 
lected. Thus  Andros  began  his  second  govern- 
ment of  New  York.  He  had  left  the  Province, 
seven  years  before,  at  the  command  of  the  Duke 
of  York.  In  the  interval,  she  had  gained,  and 
had  lost,  a  popular  x^ssembly.  And  now  her  old 
Governor  returned  among  familiar  scenes,  to  as- 
sume almost  imperial  authority,  as  the  Viceroy 
of  James  the  Second. 

A  few  days  afterwards,  the  Governor  General 
went  over  to  New  Jersey,  and  published  his  com- 
mission at  Elizabethtown,  and  then  again  at  Bur- 
lington. Several  local  officers  were  at  once  com- 
missioned by  Andros,  under  the  great  seal  of  the 
Dominion.  It  was  remarked  that  both  East  and 
West  Jersey  were  thinly  inhabited  ;  but  that  all 
the  x^eople  "  showed  their  great  satisfaction  in  be- 
"iug  under  His  Majesty's  immediate  govern- 
"  ment."     ( Col.  Doc.  ill.,  '554-567.) 

But  if  the  people  of  New  Jersey  were  satisfied 
with  their  altered  condition,  the  people  of  New 
York,  w^lio  had  long  been  accustomed  to  the  di- 
rect government  of  James,  were  not  generally 
pleased  that  their  Province  should  lose  its  indi- 
viduality, and  be  consolidated  with  the  Royal  Do- 
minion of  New  England.  It  was  true  that  their 
old  Governor  had  come  back  to  his  first  Ameri- 


12 


can  home,  and  that  many  of  its  inhabitants  pre- 
ferred Andrcis,  the  Protestant,  to  Dongan,  the  Ko- 
manist.  Yet  the  return  of  Andros  to  New  York 
was  accompanied  by  humiliating  circumstances. 
It  demonstrated  that  she  had  ceased  to  exist  as  a 
distinct  British- American  Province.  To  be  sure 
Massachusetts,  and  New  Hampshire,  and  Maine, 
and  JUidde  Island,  and  Connecticut,  and  New 
Jersey,  had  also  ceased  to  exist,  as  separate  En- 
glish'Colonies.  But  New  York,  from  her  begin- 
ning, had  something  peculiar  about  her.  Histo- 
rically, geograi)hically,  and  socially,  she  was, 
and  always  must  be,  'distinguished  from  every 
other  North  American  possession  of  her  British 
Sovereign.  For  half  a  century  before  her 
conquest,  she  had  remained  a  territory  of  the 
Dutch  Republic,  interposed  between  the  English 
Puritan  Colonies  at  the  North  East,  and  the 
English  Episcopalian  and  Roman  Catholic  Col- 
onies at  the  South.  For  more  than  that  period, 
her  relations  with  the  Canadian  French,  and 
with  the  Iroquois  within  her  own  borders  had 
required  special  skill  in  their  management.  Of 
all  the  North  American  possessions  of  England, 
comprehensive  New  York  seemed  most  to  need  a 
separate  government.  Up  to  this  time  she  had, 
in  fact,  been  differently  governed  from  any  other 
British-American  Colony.  She  had  never  been 
chartered  as  a  corporation,  under  either  Dutch 
or  English  authority.  In  truth,  she  had  never 
desired  to  be  ruled  by  an  oligarchy,  like  some  of 
the  incorporated  Colonies  in  New  England. 
What  the  eclectic  people  of  New  York  desired, 
and  what  for  a  season  they  had  enjoyed,  was  a 
"  Charter  of  Liberties,"  which  did  not  sequester 
local  auiiiority  for  the  benefit  of  a  sectarian  mi- 
nority of  Cli'.irch  members:  but  which  secured  to 
every  inhabitant  of  their  territory   a   share  in 


13 


legislation,  freedom  of  conscience,  and  entire 
toleration  of  all  modes  of  Christianity.  The  ex- 
pressive words,  "  2' he  People,^^  were,  for  the  lirst 
time,  used  in  that  superbest  of  all  American 
Colonial  Charters,  drafted  by  the  freemen  of 
our  own  dear  old  "  Empire  State."  [See  N.  Y. 
Colonial  Docume?iis,  III.,  358.)  If  New  York 
wished  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey  to  be  an- 
nexed to  her,  it  was  because  those  Colonies  had 
belonged  to  her  ancient  territory,  and  ought  to 
belong  to  her  now,  under  the  King's  Patent  of 
1664.  But  New  York,  in  sympathy  with  Rhode 
Island,  had  no  wish  to  be  too  closely  associated 
with  Massachusetts.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
the  metropolitan  city  of  the  old  Dutch  Province, 
knowing  that  it  had  become  "  the  envy  of  its 
"  adjacent  neighbors,  who  did  not  cease  by  all 
"  their  little  artifices  to  interrupt  its  trade," 
should  have  especially  lamented  "that  unhappy 
"  annexation  to  New  England."  {Col.  Doc.  III., 
576,  792,  799;  Bunlap,  II.,  App.  CXLI.\ 

Nevertheless,  if  the  people  of  New  York  gen- 
erally felt  it  a  political  "degradation"  to  be  thus 
annexed  to  New  England,  there  were  some  who 
at  first  enjoyed  gratification.  Her  Provincial 
Counsellors  found  their  official  importance  in- 
creased by  the  act  of  their  kmg.  if  the  New 
England  Counsellors  could  now  vote  on  the 
afi'airs  of  New  York,  the  New  York  Counsellors 
could  likewise  vote  on  the  affairs  of  New  En- 
gland. And  this  they  did,  in  the  case  of  a  pro- 
posed law  to  regulate  the  carrying  of  passengers 
abroad  in  ships,  which  Andros  failed  in  causing 
to  be  passed  in  Council  at  Boston,  but  which  was 
easily  enacted  when  it  was  again  brought  up  in 
Council  at  New  York. 

An  event  now  occurred  which  gave  the  Dutch 
people  of  New  York  real  uneasiness.    For  almost 


14 


half  a  generation,  they  had  hoped  that  the  wife 
of  their  own  Prince  of  Orange  woald  become 
C^ueen  of  England.  Joyfully  would  they  have 
mingled  cries  of  "Oranje  Boven'"  with  -'Long 
"  LIVE  THE  Queen.-'  But  James  had  married  a 
Roman  Catholic  second  wife,  who  bore  him  a 
son  on  the  tenth  of  June,  1G88  ;  and  this  son,  as 
Prince  of  Wales,  would  become  King  of  En- 
gland, on  the  death  of  his  father,  if  all  should  go 
regularly  on.  The  news  was  received  at  New 
York  with  regret  by  the  Dutch  Orangeists,  but 
with  vehement  joy  by  the  Royal  officials.  A 
great  city  carouse  was  given  the  same  evening, 
at  which  the  mirth  waxed  so  boisterous,  that  the 
record  quaintly  tells  us  Mayor  Van  Cortlandt 
"  sacrificed  his  hat,  peruke,  &c."  {Col.  Doc.  Ill.y 
554,  6G5^ 

A  conference  with  the  Five  Nations  at  Albany, 
and  a  visit  to  Esopus,  detained  Andros  for  some 
weeks  in  New  York,  where  he  would  have  staid 
longer  if  he  had  not  been  obliged  to  hasten  to 
Boston  on  account  of  Indian  troubles  which  had 
broken  out  in  Maine. 

Nicholson  was  accordingly  directed  to  remain 
in  New  York,  to  administer  its  government,  as- 
sisted by  the  local  Counsellors,  Phillipse, Bayard, 
Van  Cortlandt,  Younge  and  Baxter,  the  latter  of 
wliom  was  stationed,  in  command  of  the  Fort,  at 
Albany.  Brockholls  accompanied  his  old  chief, 
Andros,  to  Boston ;  and  such  of  the  New  York 
Records  as  were  necessary  for  the  Governor- 
General  to  have  at  hand  were  taken  Eastw^ard. 

When  he  returned  to  Boston,  after  an  absence 
of  eleven  weeks,  Andros  disapproved  of  what 
his  subordinates  there  had  done,  and  took  vigor- 
ous measures  to  check  the  outrages  of  the  sav- 
ages in  Maine.  Most  of  the  King's  three  com- 
panies of  regular  soldiers   at   New    iork   and 


16 


Boston  were  at  once  dispatched  thither,  under 
the  command  of  Brockholls,  with  stores  and  pro- 
visions. But  this  did  not  meet  the  emergency. 
It  was  therefore  ordered  in  Council,  on  the  first 
of  November,  1688,  that  a  militia  force  should 
be  raised  out  of  the  whole  "  Dominion  of  New 
"  England,''  and  that  the  command  of  this  force 
should  be  offered  to  Fitz  John  Winthrop,  of 
Connecticut,  one  of  the  King's  Counsellors.  But 
Winthrop  pleaded  illness,  and  declined  the  haz- 
ardous duty.  The  offer  was  repeated  to  other 
Colonial  militia  officers  of  the  Dominion,  every 
one  of  whom  "  absolutely  refused  the  service." 
They  all  preferred  staying  at  home,  to  doing 
duty  in  chilly  Maine.  Yet,  a  little  while  after- 
wards, this  pusillanimity  was  attempted  to  be 
excused  by  the  suggestion  that  Brockholls  was  a 
"  Popish  commander,"  and  that  Andros,  by  his 
vigorous  policy  for  the  defence  of  its  frontier, 
was  plotting  "  to  bring  low"  the  people  of  the 
rest  of  the  Dominion.  But,  certainly,  if  Andros 
had  been  plotting  "  to  bring  them  low,"  he 
would  not  have  weakened  the  garrison  in  Boston 
by  detaching  most  of  the  King's  stipendiary  sol- 
diers for  service  in  the  forests  of  Maine.* 

Seeing  that  no  New  England  militia  officer 
was  willing  to  conduct  the  campaign  against  the 
Maine  savages,  the  Governor-General,  by  the 
advice  of  his  Council,  resolved  to  take  the  com- 
mand himself.  Palmer,  one  of  his  Counsellors, 
thus  records  the  truth,  which  has  hitherto  been 
suppressed :   "  The  Governour's  proposal  to  the 


*  According  to  a  return  made  to  Andros  in  1668,  the  militia 
force  of  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Maine.  Plymouth, 
Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut,  was  13,329.  That  of  New 
York  was  about  2.000  in  the  same  year.  See,  also,  Arnold, 
/.,  520  ;  iV.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  III.,  581,  723,  IV..  29,  185,  197,  213  ; 
Force's  Tracts,  IV.,  No.  10,  p.  11. 


16 


"Council,  about  his  going  to  the  eastward,  met 
"with  no  opposition,  lest  some  of  the  military 
"men  there,  should  have  been  bound  in  honour 
♦*  to  have  taken  that  Iraployment  upon  them- 
"  selves.''  {Palmers  Inipartiai  Account,  35.) 

80  Andros  gallantly  went  to  Maine,  and, 
throughout  the  biting  winter,  shared  all  the 
hardships  of  the  militia,  whom  he  led.  There 
were  about  eight  hundred  men  in  all,  raised  out 
of  the  several  Colonies  :  and  among  the  officers, 
besides  Brockholls,  were  Lieutenant-colonel  Mac- 
Gregorie  and  Captain  George  Lockhart,  of  New 
York.  Many  of  the  soldiers  died  from  fatigue 
and  exposure,  in  chasing  the  savages  into  their 
remote  hiding-places.  The  result  was,  that  this 
attempt  to  capture  roaming  native  Americans, 
was  like  trying  "  to  hedge  in  the  cuckoo^'  as  Cot- 
ton Mather  afterwards  philosophized  on  the  ex- 
pedition. But  Mather  omitted  to  state  the  dis- 
gusting fact  that  while  Andros  was  thus  trying, 
with  personal  devotion,  to  protect  the  frontier  of 
his  Government  in  Maine  from  the  savages,  some 
Boston  merchants,  taking  advantage  of  his  ab- 
sence, sent  a  vessel  thither,  laden  with  ammuni- 
tion and  provisions,  to  truck  with  those  Indian 
enemies  and  their  French  friends  in  Canada  and 
Nova  Scotia.  [Col  Doc.  III.,  581,  724.) 

As  he  could  not  destroy  or  capture  its  savage 
foes,  Andros  established  some  eleven  garrisons 
for  the  protection  of  Maine.  At  Fort  Charles  in 
Pemafjuid,  he  placed  Brockholls  in  chief  com- 
mand, with  six  regular  soldiers  and  sixty  militia- 
men. MacGregorie  and  Lockhart,  of  New  York, 
were  stationed  at  other  forts.  During  the  win- 
ter, he  caused  a  sloop  to  bo  built  out  of  the  mag- 
nificent timber  of  Maine,  and  other  precautious 
to  be  taken.  But  everything  the  Governor  did 
was  misrepresented  at  Boston,  where,  during  his 


17 


absence,  the  most  absurd  stories  were  propagated, 
and  rumors  from  England  cautiously  circulated. 

Prominent  among  the  King's  instructions  to 
Andros,  was  one  which  required  him  to  suppress 
"  all  pirates  and  sea  rovers."  This  the  Gover- 
nor tried  to  execute ;  but  his  efforts  were  foiled 
by  interested  speculators.  "Since  the  vacating 
"  their  charter,''  wrote  Secretary  Randolph, "  they 
'*have  been  kept  from  the  breach  of  the  Acts  for 
"Trade  and  Navigation,  encouraged  by  their 
"former  government;^^  and  "they  are  restrained 
'*from  setting  out  privateers  who,  for  many  years 
"together,  robbed 'the  Spanish  West  Indies,  and 
"brought,  great  booties  to  Boston;  and  also,  they 
"durst  not,  during  the  Governors  time,  harbour 
"pirate*?."  Boston,  as  witnessed  by  Randolph, 
had  now  become  "the  common  receptacle  of 
"pirates  of  all  nations."  According  to  the  tes- 
timony of  Palmer,  the  "constant  and  profitable '^ 
correspondence  of  Massachusetts  with  "For- 
"eigners  and  Pirates"  had  been  so  greatly  ob- 
structed by  Andros  as  to  make  it  "very  disagree- 
"  able  to  many  persons  who  had  even  grown  old 
"  in  that  way  of  trade."  The  chief  attraction  of 
freebooters  to  Boston  seems  to  have  been  the 
Massachusetts  mint,  established  in  1652,  which 
*•  encouraged  pirates  to  bring  their  plate  thither, 
•*  because  it  could  be  coined  and  conveyed  in  great 
" parcells,  undiscovered  to  be  such ; "  {Col.  Doc. 
III.,  581,  582;  Palmer,  20.) 

The  abrogation  of  the  Massachusetts  charter 
had  crippled  those  worldly  advantages.  But  it 
had  still  more  affected  the  sectarian  interests  of 
Puritan  clergymen;  and  it  is  not  suprising  that 
combined  efforts  were  made  by  the  sufferers  to 
restore  an  oligarchy  under  which  they  had  en- 
joyed such  valued  privileges. 

Before  the  Massachusetts  charter  was  cancelled 


18 


in  1684,  not  one  of  its  inhabitants  could  vote  for 
oflBcers  of  the  corporation,  unless  he  was  a  free- 
man of  that  corporation,  and  a  puritanical  com- 
municant. But  these  corporate  "  freemen  "  were 
only  a  small  minority  of  the  population  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. The  majority  of  her  inhabitants 
were  disfrancliised.  They  were  not  represented 
in  her  General  Court ;  they  were  taxed  without 
their  consent  and  against  their  will ;  they  were 
the  subjects  of  a  spiritual  despotism.  Class 
government  is  not  and  never  was  democracy. 
As  long  as  the  Massachusetts  charter  survived, 
the  greater  part  of  her  people  enjoyed  no  real 
political  freedom:  and  not  until  its  abrogation 
did  exclusive  privilege  give  way  to  equal  popular 
rights. 

When  the  direct  government  6f  the  English 
Crown  took  the  place  of  the  class  government 
which  liad  domineered  Massachusetts  by  a  perver- 
sion of  her  Royal  charter,  it  was  very  natural 
that  her  Puritan  ministers  should  have  keenly 
felt  their  altered  condition,  and  have  bitterly 
vented  their  griefs.  Their  political  supremacy 
was  gone.  They  could  no  longer  control  the 
choice  of  corporate  ofl&cers  who  would  make 
laws  at  their  dictation.  There  was  now  popular 
equality  under  the  Common  Sovereign  of  all  En- 
glish Colonists,  where  sectarian  privilege  had 
flourished  before,  under  a  colonial  oligarchy. 
And  so,  the  cry  was  soon  started  that  Episcopa- 
lian "  wild  beasts  of  the  field  "'*  had  entered 
through  the  broken  hedge  of  the  old  charter,  and 
were  ravaging  that  succulent  Massachusetts 
sheep-fold  of  which  Puritanism  had  so  long  en- 
joyed the  exclusive  pasture. 

There  was  some  truth  in  this  metaphor  of  Cot- 
ton Mather.  Most  American  Historians  have 
denounced  Andros  as  Governor  of  New  England, 


19 


oftentimes  in  terms  of  coarse  invective,  and 
they  have  generally  represented  him  as  a  mere 
bigot,  and  minion,  and  tyrant.  The  partisan 
statements  of  early  New  England  writers  have 
been  reiterated  without  question,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  almost  every  thing  recorded  on  the  other 
side.  Whether  the  Commission  and  Instructions  of 
James  the  Second  to  his  Governor  were  more  or 
less  "  illegal "  or  "  arbitrary  "  than  the  charter 
which  his  beheaded  father  had  granted  to  Massa- 
chusetts, and  which  "  knew  no  representative 
"  body,"  was  certainly  not  a  question  for  Andros 
to  answer.  He  was  not  to  blame,  because  his 
King  had  directed  New  England  to  be  governed 
by  himself  and  his  Counsellors,  without  an  As- 
sembly. Ilis  duty  was  to  execute  his  Sovereign's 
commands ;  and  this  duty  he  did  with  characteristic 
energy — faithfully,  fearlessly,  and,  in  some  in- 
stances, harshly.  In  his  administration  he  greatly 
offended  the  "perverse  people"  who  had  so  long 
been  accustomed  to  order  every  thing  in  their 
own  way.  So  they  complained  that  it  was  a 
great  wrong  to  require  deponents  to  touch  the 
Bible,  instead  of  holding  up  their  hands ;  a 
grievance  that  Quakers  should  be  allowed  "  free- 
"  dom  to  worship  God ''  in  their  own  fashion, 
and  not  be  compelled,  as  of  old,  to  pay  forced 
rates  for  the  support  of  Congregational  minis- 
ters; an  offence  that  the  English  Church  service 
should  be  celebrated  in  Boston  by  the  Rector, 
Samuel  Miles.  They  liked  the  Press  to  be  muz- 
zled by  Puritan  censors ;  but  they  groaned  when 
it  was  nnizzled  by  Episcopalians.  It  was  espe- 
cially galling  to  them  that  West,  and  Farewell, 
and  Graham,  and  Palmer,  whom  Andros  had 
made  his  chief  subordinates  and  confidants,  had 
come  from  New  York.  These  officials  were  op- 
probriously  called  "  a  crew  of  abject  persons." 


Yet,  much  allowance  should  be  made  for  such 
old  spiteful  words,  uttered  by  partisans,  in  the 
heat  of  angry  controversy.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  many  of  the  acts  of  the  Governor  General's 
experienced  subordinates  were  selfish  and  very 
oppressive.  Land  titles  were  questioned  so  that 
large  fees  might  be  exacted  for  new  Patents. 
Other  official  charges  were  avariciously  in- 
creased. The  Judges  of  the  Dominion  were 
greatly  blamed  for  administering  the  law  strictly, 
according  to  the  practice  in  England.  They 
were  especially  reviled  for  not  allowing  writs  of 
Habeas  Corpus  under  Shaftesbury's  act  of  1679. 
But  those  Colonial  Judges  were  at  any  rate 
lawyers  enough  to  know  that  Shaftesbury's 
Statute  did  not  extend  to  the  English  Plantations. 
It  was  purely  an  English  domestic  measure. 
And  I  may  here  mention,  an  as  interesting  histori- 
cal fact,  that  tills  English  Habeas  Corpus  act 
never  did  aflect  any  one  British-American  Col- 
ony, until  Queen  Anne  used  her  prerogative  to 
stretch  it  across  the  Atlantic  to  Virginia,  in 
1705.  Nevertheless,  Andros  was  hold  to  be  re- 
sponsible for  every  doing  and  every  saying  of 
each  of  his  subordinates.  Most  of  his  own  acts 
were  able  and  statesmanlike,  while  some  of 
them  were  arbitrary  and  provoking.  His  great- 
est ftiult  was  tliat  he  administered  his  govern- 
ment too  loyally  to  his  Sovereign,  and  too  much 
like  a  brave  soldier.  Instead  of  conciliating,  he 
wounded  :  instead  of  arguing,  he  ordered.  Even 
James  saw  the  injury  his  honest  Viceroy  was 
doing  him  in  New  England,  and  was  obliged  to 
rebuke  his  excessive  zeal. 

The  King's  Declaration  of  April  1G87,  for 
liberty  of  conscience,  was  at  first  joyfully  re- 
ceived by  his  most  sanguine  New  England  sub- 
jects.    Puritans  thought  it  a  deliverance  from 


21 


English  Prelacy  ;  Quakers  and  Anabaptists  felt 
that  they  could  at  length  share  in  the  liberty 
which  Congregationalists  had  monopolized  :  and 
the  small  band  of  Episcopalians  gathered  in 
Boston  rejoiced  that  they  might  now  Ireely  hear 
the  beautiful  liturgy  of  their  denomination  read 
by  a  surpliced  clergyman.  What  in  our  own 
day  is  called  "  Broad  Church^''  seemed  to  be  es- 
tablished by  James  the  Second  throughout  his 
Dominion  of  New  England.  But  the  Puritan 
ministers  of  Massachusetts  soon  caught  an  alarm. 
They  quaintly  complained  "  that  a  licentious 
"  people  take  the  advantage  of  a  liberty  to  with- 
"hold  maintenance  from  them/"-  They  were 
vexed  that  Andros  would  not  allow  all  the  in- 
habitants to  be  distressed  by  constables  visiting 
their  houses,  to  levy  the  compulsory  church 
rates  to  pay  the  salaries  by  which  Massachusetts 
Congregational  preachers  had  been  comforted  of 
old.  All  around  Boston,  these  Sectarians  waxed 
wroth  when  they  discovered  that  their  own  hatred 
of  Protestant  Episcopacy  was  surpassed  by  that 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  head  of  the  Church  of 
England  ;  and  the  most  discerning  Puritan  poli- 
ticians in  the  Bay  Colony  began  to  dread  a 
Royal  toleration  more  than  the  enforcement  of 
the  suspended  penal  laws  about  religion,  which 
they  now  called  "the  only  wall  against  Popery.'^ 
Adclresses  of  thanks  to  the  King  Avere,  neverthe- 
less, adopted  by  several  congregations ;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  petitions  were  signed  for  relief 
from  some  of  the  imperious  measures  of  Andros. 
These  documents  were  entrusted  to  Increase 
Mather,  one  of  the  most  eminent  Puritan  minis- 
ters in  Massachusetts,  who  had  been  sued  for  a 
libel  by  Randolph,  and  was  obliged  to  embark 
in  disguise  for  England,  apparently  hoping  to  ob- 


22 


tain  from  the  King  a  restoration  of  his  Colony's 
effete  oligarchy. 

But  the  determination  of  James  to  maintain 
the  government  he  had  established  in  New  En- 
gland, could  not  bo  shaken.  Personal  favorites, 
prevailing  in  other  points,  were  foiled  in  this. 
Sir  William  Phipps,  a  native  of  Maine,  whom 
ho  had  made  a  Knight,  for  his  success  in  recov- 
ering  a  large  treasure  from  a  Spanish  wreck  near 
Ilispaniola,  was  allowed  to  ask  what  he  pleased  ; 
and  Phipps  asked  "that  New  England  might 
"  have  its  lost  liberties  restored."  But  James, 
who  had  no  idea  of  re-establishing  Puritanism  in 
Massachusetts,  replied,  "  Anything  but  that." 
Phipps  then  procured  a  Royal  Patent  to  be 
High  Sheriff  of  New  England,"^  so  that  he  could 
impannel  jurors,  and  tlius  counteract  Andros. 
"With  this  he  came  to  Boston  some  time  after 
Mather  had  gone  ;  but  the  Governor  found  away 
to  defeat  his  Patent,  and  Phipps  returned  to  Lon- 
don full  of  indignation.  [Magnalia^  Z,  175,  176, 
178.) 

In  the  mean  time,  Mather  had  been  kindly  re- 
ceived by  James  on  the  thirtieth  of  May,  and,  in 
conjunction  with  Nowell  and  Hutchinson,  former 
magistrates  of  Massachusetts,  had  petitioned  for 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  favor  to  the  College  at 
Cambridge.  But  these  petitions  spoke  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  in  such  "  very  indecent  lan- 
"  guage,"  that  the  Agents  were  obliged  to  with- 
draw tliem  from  the  Phintation  Committee,  to 
which  tliey  liad  been  referred.  The  Agents  then 
petitioned  for  a  confirmation  of  estates  in  New 
England,  "  and  tliat  no  laws  might  be  made,  or 
"  monies  raised,  without  an  Assembly,  with  sun- 
"  dry  other  particulars."  This  petition  was  re- 
ferrt'd  to  Attorncy-General  Powis  for  a  report. 
But  Lord  Sunderland,  the  President  of  the  Coun- 


cil,  struck  out  of  it,  "  the  essential  proposal  of 
"  an  Assembly,"  telliug  Mr.  Brent  of  the  Temple, 
the  Solicitor  of  the  petitioners,  "  that  it  was  by 
"his  advice  that  the  King. had  given  a  commis- 
"  sion  to  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  to  raise  monies 
"  without  an  Assembly,  snd ,  that  he  knew  the 
"  King  would  never  consent  to  an  alteration  ; 
"  nor  would  he  propose  it  to  His  Majesty." 
Powis,  however,  had  been  "dexterously  gained;" 
and  being  hardly  a  third-rate  lawyer,  and  very 
jealous  of  his  predecessor  Sawyer,  he  reported 
that  the  Massachusetts  charter  had  been  "  ille- 
"  gaily  vacated."  A  copy  of  this  report  was 
dispatched  to  Boston,  where  it  was  used  to  excite 
hopes  of  a  new  charter,  "  with  larger  power." 
But  the  agents  at  length  became  convinced  that 
the  Massachusetts  charter  would  neither  be  re- 
stored nor  enlarged,  and  that  the  King  would 
not  disturb  the  policy  he  had  adopted  in  regard 
to  consolidated  New  England.  They  then  asked 
the  Plantation  Committee  to  report  "that  until 
"  His  Majesty  shall  be  graciously  pleased  to 
"  grant  an  Assembly,  the  Council  should  consist 
"  of  such  persons  as  shall  be  considerable  pro- 
"  prietors  of  lands  within  his  Majesty^s  Domin- 
"  ions,"  that  each  county  should  have  a  Coun- 
sellor, and  that  no  law  should  be  made  except 
by  a  vote  of  the  majority  of  these  Counsellors. 
This  would  of  course  have  placed  the  govern- 
ment of  New  England  in  the  hands  of  a  local 
landed  aristocracy. 

But  extraordinary  events  were  now  culmi- 
nating in  England,  which  postponed  definite 
action  on  Colonial  afi'airs.  In  the  midst  of  these 
movements,  William  Penn  retained  the  favor  of 
his  Sovereign,  who  made  him  "  Supervisor  of 
"  excise  and  hearth  money,"  and  promised  to 
enlarge   Pennsylvania  by  "  a  grant  under  the 


24 


"  great  Seal,  for  the  three  counties  on  the  Dela- 
"  ware.''  If  this  royal  promise  had  been  exe- 
cuted, there  would  have  been  one  less  North 
American  State;  and  New  York  would  now 
have  had  a  rival  Sister,  no  less  powerful  in  com- 
merce than  in  agriculture.  Yet,  while  James 
thus  especially  favored  Penn,  he  promised  Mather 
a  "6|.eedy  redress"  of  many  grievances  in  New 
England  ;  and  that,  in  the  mean  time,  Andros 
"  should  be  written  unto,  to  forbear  the  measures 
*'  that  he  was  upon."  But  no  such  instructions 
were  sent  to  Andros. 

A  revolution  in  England  prevented  many  of 
the  King's  designs  in  America  from  being  car- 
ried out.  One  of  these  designs  seems  to  have 
been  to  extend  the  system  of  consolidation,  which 
had  worked  so  well  in  New  England,  throughout 
the  other  British  North  American  Colonies.  If 
James  had  remained  King,  he  would  very  soon 
have  included  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas  in  one  grand  general  govern- 
ment, with  New  England,  under  his  North  Amer- 
ican Viceroy.  It  was  also  his  purpose,  as  he 
afterwards  informed  the  Pope,  "  to  have  set  up 
"  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  in  the  English 
"  Plantations  of  America."  This,  how^ever,  could 
not  have  been  accomplished  as  long  as  the  Mother 
Country  was  Protestant.  The  rash  bigotry  of 
James  precipitated  the  event,  in  that  country, 
which  observing  men  had  long  foreseen.  It 
alarmed  the  penetrating  judgment  of  the  Vatican. 
"  We  must,"  said  the  thoughtful  cardinals  of  In- 
nocent the  Eleventh,  "  excommunicate  this  King, 
"  who  will  destroy  the  little  of  Catholicism 
"  which  remains  in  England."  But  before  Rome 
applied  her  precautionary  ^^brake,'^  the  last 
male  Stuart  sovereign  of  Great  Britain  was  de- 
throned. 


25 


The  story  of  the  English  Revolution  of  1688 
is  familiar.  James  the  Second  offended  English 
Protestants  so  much,  that  they  invited  the  Dutch 
Stadtholder,  William  the  Third,  Prince  of  Orange, 
to  come  over  from  Holland  and  deliver  them  from 
their  Roman  Catholic  King,  who  had  now  har- 
rowed God's  field  long  enough.  As  soon  as 
James  was  assured  that  William  was  coming,  he 
issued  a  Proclamation  summoning  his  subjects  to 
defend  their  country  from  invasion.  He  also 
wrote  a  circular  letter,  on  the  sixteenth  of  Oc- 
tober, 1688,  to  Andros,  and  his  other  Colonial 
Governors,  warning  each  of  them  "  to  take  care, 
"  that  upon  the  approach  of  any  fleet  or  foreign 
"  force,  the  militia  of  that  our  Plantation,  be  in 
"  such  readiness  as  to  hinder  any  landing  or  in- 
"  vasion  that  may  be  intended  to  be  made  within 
"  the  same.'' 

The  dispatch  of  this  circular  was  the  last 
official  act  of  James  the  Second  in  regard  to  his 
American  Colonies.  Lord  Sunderland,  the  versa- 
tile Minister  who  countersigned  it,  was  removed 
from  office,  a  few  days  afterwards,  for  treasonable 
correspondence  with  the  enemies  of  his  master. 
But  nothing  could  now  help  James.  On  the  fifth 
of  November,  1688 — the  eighty-third  anniversary 
of  the  discovery  of  Guy  Fawkes's  "  Gunpowder 
"Plot"  against  James  the  First,  in  1605 — by  a 
singular  coincidence,  William  landed  at  Torbay 
in  Devonshire,  at  the  head  of  a  large  Dutch 
force.  The  second  James,  less  lucky  than  his 
grandfather,  became  stupefied,  abdicated  his 
crown,  and  fled  to  France.  A  provisional  direc- 
tory of  English  Peers  was  formed  at  London, 
which  invited  the  Prince  of  Orange  to  assume 
the  administration  of  the  English  Government. 
This  invitation  was  accepted  by  William,  who, 
after  partaking  of  the  Holy  Communion,  accord- 
4 


26 


ing  to  the  ritual  of  the  English  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  on  the  last  day  of  December,  1688, 
became  the  virtual  Sovereign  of  England. 

The  attention  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  was 
quickly  called  to  the  situation  of  the  English 
Colonies  in  North  America,  "for  the  happy 
"state  of  which  he  possessed  a  particular  care." 
A  few  days  after  his  assumption  of  the  adminis- 
tration, on  the  ninth  of  January,  1G89,  Mather 
was  introduced  to  him  by  Lord  Wharton,  and 
he  was  fully  informed  of  the  warning  letter 
which  James  had  sent  to  his  American  Gov- 
ernors in  the  previous  October.  William  now 
thought  it  prudent  to  communicate  his  own  in- 
structions to  those  Governors.  Accordingly,  on 
the  twelfth  of  January,  1089,  under  the  counter- 
signature of  William  Jephson,  his  private  Secre- 
tary, the  Prince  wrote  an  adroit  circular  letter 
to  each  of  them,  directing  that  all  persons  "  not 
"  being  Papists,"  holding  any  offices  in  the  Plan- 
tations, should  continue  to  execute  them  as  for- 
merly ;  and  that  "all  orders  and  directions  lately 
**made  or  given  by  any  legal  authority,  shall  be 
"obeyed  and  performed  by  all  persons,"  until 
further  commands  should  come  from  England. 
Thus  William  clearly  announced  his  American 
policy  to  be  that  of  "  statu  quoP  This  letter 
was  dispatched  to  Virginia ;  and  it  was  directed 
to  be  sent  to  New  England,  and  the  other  English 
dependencies. 

But  the  Massachusetts  Agents  in  London  saw 
at  once,  that  if  William's  letter  should  be  re- 
ceived by  Andros,  it  would  be  "fatal  to  their 
♦'  schemes ;"  l)ecause  it  would  reduce  their  con- 
stituents to  the  dilemma  of  submitting  to  his  au- 
thority, under  the  Prince's  direction,  or  else  of 
treasonably  rebelling.  By  this  time  Phipps  had 
got  back  to  London;  and  he,  with  Mather, so  ef- 


fectually  wheedled  Jephson,  that  William's  let- 
ter to  Andros  "  was  stopped,  and  ordered  not  to 
"  be  sent.''  This  was  the  turning  point  of  the 
trouble  which  followed  in  New  England ;  and  no 
one  afterwards  regretted  the  success  of  this  White- 
hall back-stairs  intrigue,  of  which  William  was 
made  the  chief  victim,  more  than  did  William 
himself. 

A  month  after  this  letter  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange  was  thus  withheld  from  Andros,  on  the 
thirteenth  of  February,  1689,  William  and 
Mary  were  proclaimed  King  and  Queen  of  En- 
gland, and  "  all  the  Dominions  and  Territories 
"  thereunto  belonging."  The  next  day  the  new 
Sovereigns,  by  their  Proclamation,  confirmed  in 
their  offices  "  all  Protestants  "  within  the  King- 
dom. But  this  did  not  aflfect  officers  in  the  En- 
glish Colonies.  Five  days  afterwards,  on  the 
nineteenth  of  February,  1689,  another  Proclama- 
tion directed  that  "  all  men,'^  in  the  several  Col- 
onies, "  being  in  offices  of  Government,  shall  so 
"  continue,  until  their  Majesty^  further  pleasure 
"  he  knownP  The  difference  between  these  two 
Proclamations  was  very  significant.  In  England, 
Protestants  only  were  to  be  kept  in  office.  But 
in  the  English  Colonies,  all  officials  were  to  re- 
main undisturbed.  There  was  no  danger  to  Pro- 
testantism in  America,  as  there  had  been  in  Bri- 
tain.=^' 


*  The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  circular  letter  of  the  English 
Privy  CouDcil,  to  the  several  Colouial  Governors  : 

"After  our  very  hearty  commendations  : — Whereas,  WiL- 
"  LIAM  and  Mary,  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange,  have,  with 
"  the  consent  and  at  the  desire  <.f  the  Lords  Si)iritual  and  Tem, 
"  poral,  in  Parliument  Assembled  at  Westminster,  been  pro- 
"  claimed  Kinp  and  Qaeen  <f  England,  France  and  Ireland, 
"  and  of  the  Territories  and  Oominions  ther-uoto  appertaining. 
"  We  have  thought  fit  hereby  to  signify  the  same  unto  you, 
*'  with  directions  that  with  the  Council  and  other  principaloffi- 


28 


The  Revolution  in  England  was  thus  held  by 
her  statesmen  as  in  no  way  affecting  her  Colonies, 
except  in  transferring  their  allegiance,  without 
their  expressed  consent,  from  one  British  Sov- 
ereign to  another.  But,  while  Phipps  and  Mather 
acquiesced  in  this  doctrine,  they  thought  the  time 
had  come  for  a  vigorous  effort  to  break  up  the 
consolidated  New  England  of  the  late  King. 
They  were  "  secessionists  ;"  they  thought  more 
of  Massachusetts  than  of  Union  ;  and  they  wanted 
to  destroy  Union.  Encouraged  by  the  favor  of 
Marv,  who,  before  she  left  Holland,  had  been 
gained  over  to  their  side,  by  "  the  eminent '' 
Abraham  Kick,  of  Rotterdam,  Phipps  and 
Mather,  on  the  eighteenth  of  February,  p  nitioned 
William  that  Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut  might  be  "restored  to 
"  their  ancient  privileges.'^  But  they  said 
nothing  about  New  York    and  New  Jersey  in 


"  cers  and  inhabitants  of  [Virginia]  you  proclaim  their  most 
"sacred  Majestys.  according  to  the  form  here  inclosed  [See 
"  Col.  Doc.  III.,  605],  with  the  solemnities  and  ceremonies  re- 
"  quisite  on  the  like  occasion.  And  we  do  further  transmit 
"  unto  you  their  Majesiys  most  gracious  Proclamation,  signi- 
"  fying  their  Majesty's  pleasure  that  all  men  being  in  offices  of 
"  Government,  shall  so  continue,  until  their  Majesty's  further 
"  pleasure  be  known.  We  do  in  like  manner  will  and  require  you 
♦'  forthwith  to  cause  to  be  proclaimed  and  published,  as  also  that 
•'you  do  give  order  that  the  oaths  herewith  sent,  be  taken  by 
"  all  persons  of  whom  the  oaths  of  Supremacy  and  Allegiance 
•*  might  heretofore  have  been  required  ;  and  that  the  said  oaths 
"of  Allegiance  and  Supremacy  be  set  aside  and  abrogated 
"  within  your  government.  And  so,  ^c.  &c.  &c 
••  From  the  Council  Chamber,  the  19th  February,  1688-9. 
"Halifax,  C.  P.  S.  SuRKWsnuRT,  Macclesfield, 
'*  Bath.  H.  CAPt l.  J.  Boscawen, 

"  Wi.NciiESTKR,  Devonshire,  Delamerb, 

"R"  Howard,  R.  Hampden." 

This  di-patch  was  sent  to.  and  acted  on.  in  Virginia,  and  in 
Pennsylvania;  and  it  would  surely  have  been  obeyed  by  An- 
dros.  if  he  had  received  it.  Compare  Col.  Doc,  III.,  572,  583, 
587.  588,  605;  Chalmers.  I.,  431,469;  Anderson's  Colonial 
Church,  II.,  381,  382;  Penn.  Col.  Rec,  I.,  340,341. 


29 


whicli  they  had  no  interest.  William  referred 
this  petition  to  his  Plantation  Committee  ;  and 
meanwhile  he  directed  that  the  dispatches  and 
Proclamations  which  the  Privy  Council  had 
ordered  to  be  sent  to  Andros  should  be  "  post- 
"poned  'till  the  business  of  taking  away  the 
"  charters  should  be  considered."  Phipps  and 
Mather  were  accordingly  heard  by  their  Coun- 
sel before  the  Plantation  Committee ;  and  Sir 
Robert  Sawyer,  the  former  Attorney  General,  in 
1684,  reported  the  reasons  for  the  cancellation  of 
the  Massachusetts  charter.  Sawyer's  report  was 
legally  satisfactory.  Even  Treby  and  Somers, 
the  Attorney  and  Solicitor  General  of  William 
the  Third,  pronounced  the  "  unreversed  "  judg- 
ment in  Chancery,  gained  by  Sawyer  against  that 
charter,  to  be  good,  in  spite  of  the  unlawyer-like 
opinion  which  a  few  months  before  had  been 
bought  from  Powis,  the  venal  Attorney  General 
of  James  the  Second. 

And  so,  the  Plantation  Committee  of  William 
tlie  Third  agreed  to  report,  on  the  twenty-second 
of  February,  1689, "  that  His  Majesty  be  pleased 
"  to  send  forthwith,  a  Governor  to  New  England, 
"  in  the  place  of  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  with  a  Pro- 
"  visional  Commission,  and  with  Instructions  to 
"  proclaim  His  Majesty  in  those  colonies."  But 
the  sending  of  another  Royal  Governor  in  place  of 
Andros,  was  just  what  Phipps  and  Mather  did  not 
wish  to  be  done.  He  was  as  good  as  any  other 
Royal  Governor  might  be.  Accordingly,  the  King 
was  prevailed  upon  to  order  that  a  new  charter 
should  be  prepared  for  New  England,  which, 
while  it  recognized  colonial  rights  in  property, 
reserved  colonial "  dependence  on  tlie  crown ;"  and 
that,  instead  of  a  Governor,  two  Commissioners 
should  be  sent  to  administer  its  government,  in 
tt^e  name  of  the  Sovereign.    Yet  even  this  did  oot 


puit  the  Massachusetts  agents.  It  settled  the 
fate  of  Andros;  but  it  showed  that  William 
meant  to  keep  New  England  consolidated,  as 
James  had  established  that  Dominion. 

A  general  popular  Assembly  in  New  England, 
wns  not  palatable  to  the  Massachusetts  agents. 
What  they  wanted  was  the  restoration  of  the  old 
separate  ^Puritan  oligarchy  in  that  Colony:— 
nothing  more,  nothing  less.  Accordingly,  on  the 
fourteenth  of  March,  Mather  was  again  presented 
to  the  King,  whom  he  implored  to  "favour  New 
"England."  This  William  readily  promised ;  but 
he  keenly  remarked,  "  there  have  been  irregular- 
"  ities  in  their  government."  At  the  same  time 
he  declared  that  Andros  should  be  recalled,  and 
that  "  the  present  King  and  Queen  shall  be 
"proclaimed  by  their  former  magistrates." 
What  William  really  meant  by  this  phrase,  "  for- 
"  raer  magistrates,"'  is  not  clear  :  but  it  is  certain 
that  he  did  not  mean  to  decompose  his  pre- 
decessor's "  Dominion  of  New  England  "  into  its 
former  several  integers.  He  was  too  good  a 
statesman  not  to  adopt  at  once  James's  royal 
notion  of  Colonial  consolidation,  and  not  to  main- 
tain that  idea  which  was  so  demonstrably  ad- 
vantageous for  England,  especially  when  she  was 
on  the  eve  of  a  bitter  war  with  France.  Yet, 
William's  large  European  policy  was  not  re- 
vealed to  the  agents  of  his  subordinate  American 
colony.  In  this  state  of  doubt,  Phipps  thought 
that  ho  had  better  hasten  back  to  Massachusetts. 
But  before  he  left  London,  a  messenger  from 
James,  who  was  now  in  Ireland,  tendered  him 
"  the  government  of  New  England,  if  he  would 
"  accept  it."  This  Irish  offer,  by  "  the  abdicated 
"king,"  Phipps  wisely  declined';  and  soon  after- 
wards lie  set  sail  for  Boston,  carrying  the  Privy 
Council's  delayed  dispatches  to  Andros  of  niae- 


31 


teenth  of  February,  and"  with  certain  instructions 
"from  none  of  the  least  considerable  persons  at 
"  Whitehall."  One  of  these  private  "  instruc- 
"  tions  "  was  that  if  the  people  of  New  England 
"  did  give  tliera  the  trouble  to  hang  Sir  Edmund, 
"  they  deserved  noe  friends  :  "  {Col.  Doc.  Ill.y  587, 
588  ;  Magnalia,  Z,  178.) 

After  the  departure  of  Phipps,  the  English 
Privy  Council,  on  the  eighteenth  of  April,  directed 
Secretary  Shrewsbury,  to  inquire  who  were  best 
fitted  to  be  Governor  and  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
New  England.  These  appointments  were  the 
more  necessary  to  be  made  at  once,  in  view  of 
the  opening  war  with  France.  It  was  also  con- 
templated to  bring  the  several  proprietary  govern- 
ments in  America  "  under  a  nearer  dependence  on 
"  the  Crown,  as  His  Majesty's  revenue  in  the 
"  Plantations  is  very  much  concerned  herein." 
Thus  William's  Whig  Counsellors,  in  the  third 
month  of  his  reign,  advised  him  to  carry  out 
some  of  the  most  decided  colonial  measures  of 
his  predecessor,  because  those  measures  were  now 
selfishly  considered  to  benefit  England. 

Two  hundred  years  ago,  news  from  Europe 
came  tardily  and  uncertainly  across  the  Atlantic. 
The  monitory  letter  sent  by  James  to  Andros  in 
October,  did  not  reach  Boston  until  the  following 
January.  By  the  same  vessel,  Mather  warned 
his  Massachusetts  friends,  "  to  prepare  the  minds 
"  of  the  people  for  an  interesting  change."  The 
King's  letter  was  dispatched  to  Maine,  and 
in  obedience  to  it,  on  the  Tenth  of  January,  1689, 
Andros  issued  his  Proclamation,  dated  "  at  Fort 
"  CharleSf  at  Pemaquid,"  charging  "  all  officers, 
"civil  and  military,  and  all  other  His  Majesty's 
"  loving  subjects  within  this  his  Territory  and 
"Dominion  aforesaid,  to  be  vigilant  and  careful 
"  in  their  respective  places  and  stations ;  and  that 


/I'm5 


82 


««  upon  the  approach  of  any  Fleet  or  Foreign 
"  Force,  they  be  in  readiness,  and  use  their  utmost 
"endeavour  to  hinder  any  landing  or  invasion 
"that  may  be  intended  to  be  made  within  the 
"same.''  {See  Val  Man.,  1859,452;  Hist.  Mag., 
Nov.  186G,  144,  Sup.) 

A  few  weeks  afterwards,  while  Nicholson  was 
putting  New  York  in  a  better  condition  of  defence, 
a  coasting  vessel  from  Virginia  arrived  there,  on 
the  fifth  of  February  ;  and  Andries  Greveraet  her 
master,  called  on  the  Lieutenant-Governor  at 
Fort  James,  with  news  that  the  Prince  of  Orange 
had  landed  at  Torbay.  Astonished  to  hear  it, 
Nicholson  compared  William  to  Monmouth; 
prophesied  that  "the  very  'prentice  boys  of 
"  London  will  drive  hira  out  againe ; "  and  for- 
bade the  news  to  be  divulged  to  any  one.  A 
week  afterwards,  Jacob  Leisler,  a  Captain  of  one 
of  the  City  train-bands,  and  a  large  importer  of 
foreign  liquors,  received  a  confirmation  of  the  in- 
telligence, by  way  of  Maryland.  The  news  was 
"kept  private  at  first"  by  Nicholson  and  his 
Counsellors,  "to  hinder  any  tumult  by  divulg- 
"  ing  the  same  so  suddenly.''  But,  on  the  first  of 
March,  1689,  "a  full  account"  of  it  was  dis- 
patched from  New  York  to  Andros,  in  Maine.* 

When  Andros  received  Nicholson's  dispatches 
from  New  York,  he  left  Brockholls  in  chief 
command  at  Peraaquid,  and  hastened  to  Boston, 
which  he  reached  "about  the  latter  end  of 
"  March  :"  {Col.  Doc.  III.,  581,  723.)  A  few  days 
afterwards,  on  the  4th  of  April,  John  Winslow 
arrived  at  Boston  from  the  West  Indies,  bring- 


*  It  is  remarkable  that  Mr.  J.  G.  Palfrey,  the  most  recent  his- 
torian of  "  New  England,"  who  frequently  quotes  what  he  calls 
the  ^'  O'Callaghan  Documents,''''  abstains  from  any  allusion 
to  this  earliest  intelligence  received  in  America,  of  the  landing 
of  William  the  Third  in  England,  which  is  printed,  in  full,  in 
the  New  York  Colonial  Documents,  III.,  391,  660. 


ing  copies  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's  Declaration 
from  the  Hague,  and  confirmation  of  the  previous 
news  of  his  landing  in  England.  Andros  re- 
quired Winslow  to  produce  the  Prince's  declara- 
tions ;  but  he  refusing  to  do  so,  was  imprisoned 
for  not  communicating  these  important  public 
documents  to  the  Governor-General  of  New  Eng- 
land, Avho  certainly  had  a  right  to  know  their 
contents. 

The  intrigue  of  Phipps  and  Mather,  in  Lon- 
don, which  prevented  the  transmission  to  Andros 
of  the  Prince  of  Orange's  confirmatory  letter  of 
the  twelfth  of  January,  and  of  the  Privy  Council's 
dispatches  of  the  nineteenth  of  February,  now  pro- 
duced its  intended  result.  That  active  divine, 
Increase  Mather,  had  written  home,  that  "a 
"  charter  with  larger  power  "  for  Massachusetts, 
would  be  obtained  from  James.  It  was  plausibly 
argued  by  Mather's  correspondents,  that,  if  favor 
might  be  expected  from  James,  much  more 
would  surely  come  from  William.  The  success 
of  the  Calvinistic  Dutch  Prince  became  the  earn- 
est prayer  of  the  New  England  Puritans.  Al- 
though it  was  well  understood  by  Louis,  and 
Seignelay,  in  France,  that  the  Protestant  Andros 
would  at  once  declare  for  William,  if  he  should 
become  the  Sovereign  of  England,  (C7<??.  Doc.  IX., 
403,  404,)  the  chief  leaders  of  opinion  in  Massa- 
chusetts chose  to  pronounce  otherwise.  What 
they  wanted  to  get — rightly  or  wrongly — was  a 
restoration  of  the  former  separate  charter  govern- 
ment of  the  colony.  Accordingly,  they  rumored 
that  by  his  Proclamation  of  January  to  hinder  the 
landing  of  any  "foreign  force"  in  New  England, 
Andros  had  meant  to  oppose  the  coraniands  of 
William,  if  he  should  become  his  lawful  Sov- 
ereign. The  Boston  merchants  who  had  sent 
supplies  to  the  Indians  in  Maine,  and  others 
5 


84 


whose  illicif,  trading  had  been  stopped,  joined  in 
the  consoiracy  against  the  Governor.  Bj  this 
time  there  was  great  excitement  in  and  around 
Boston:  and  Andros  wrote  to  Brockholls  at 
Pemaquid,  on  the  sixteenth  of  April,  that  "  there 
"is  a  general  buzzing  among  the  people,  great 
"with  expectation  of  their  old  charter,  or  they 
"  know  not  what ;'"'  [Hatch.  I.,  372.)  But  the  most 
reflecting  Massachusetts  minds  saw  that  the 
American  Plantations  of  England  must  necessa- 
rily follow  the  fate  of  their  mother  country ;  and 
that  it  would  be  wise  to  await  the  event  in  that 
country.  As  swings  the  ship  with  the  tide,  so 
must  swing  lier  yawl.  So,  the  "  principal  gentle- 
"  men  in  Boston  "  after  consultation  agreed  that 
they  would,  if  possible,  "  extinguish  all  essays  in 
"  the  people  towards  an  insurrection."  Yet,  if  an 
"  ungoverned  mobile "  should  push  matters  to 
extremity,  those  "principal  gentlemen"  would 
themselves  head  the  movement,  and  secure  any 
official  rewards  that  might  follow  its  success. 
Accordingly,  the  young  Cotton  Mather  drew  up 
a  prolix  :  "  Declaration  of  the  gentlemen^  mer- 
"  chantSy  and  inhabitants  of  Boston^  and  the  coun- 
"  ti-y  adjacent^''  explaining  their  intended  revolt, 
and  their  purpose  to  secure  Andros  and  his  offi- 
cers, "  for  what  justice  orders  from  his  Highness 
"  with  the  English  Parliament  shall  direct,  lest, 
"  ere  we  are  aware,  we  find  (what  we  may  fear, 
"  being  on  all  sides  in  danger)  ourselves  to  be  by 
"  them  given  away  to  a  Foreign  power,  before 
"  such  orders  can  reach  unto  us ;"  (  Magnalia,  I., 
179, 180 ;  Hutch.,1.,  381 ;  Force's  Tracts,  lV.,ix.,x.) 
There  was  certainly  no  "  Foreign  power " 
able  or  likely  to  damage  New  England  in  the 
Spring  of  1G89,  except  the  French  Canadians 
and  the  Savages,  against  whom  Andros  had  been 
the  whole  winter  endeavoring  to  defend  Maine, 


36 


That  he  would  have  *'  given  away  "  New  England 
to  Louis,  was  not  believed  by  Louis  himself; 
{N.  T.  Col.  Doc,  IX.,  403,  404.)  But  this  absurd 
intent  was  charged  against  Andros,  with  the  de- 
sign of  recommending  to  William  a  Colonial  re- 
volt he  did  not  desire,  and  which  must  necessarily 
embarrass  his  government.  The  train  thus  care- 
fully prepared  was  admirably  fired.  It  was 
noised  about,  that  Boston  was  to  be  destroyed  by 
the  New  York  Mohawks,  and  by  mines  under 
the  town :  that  the  soldiers  in  Maine  were  all 
poisoned  with  rum;  and  that  a  French  fleet  of 
thirty  sail  was  hovering  on  the  coast;  {Pal- 
mer, 9.)  These  and  other  absurd  stories  were  so 
generally  circulated,  that  insurrection  could  not 
be  restrained.  On  the  eighteenth  of  April,  the 
populace  in  and  around  Boston  rose  in  arms, 
seized  Captain  George,  of  the  Royal  frigate 
Rose,  and  imprisoned  Sherifi"  Sherlock,  with 
Randolph,  Farewell,  and  other  obnoxious  oflScials 
of  the  New  England  government.  About  noon, 
Bradstreet,  the  last  Governor  of  Massachusetts, 
under  its  cancelled  charter,  with  several  other 
prominent  Boston  citizens,  assembled  in  the 
Royal  Council  Chamber  at  the  Town-house ;  and 
after  Cotton  Mather's  verbose  declaration  had  been 
read  from  the  balcony,  they  notified  Andros,  who 
was  then  at  the  fort,  to  surrender  the  government, 
"  to  be  preserved  and  disposed  according  to  order 
**  and  direction  from  the  Crown  of  England, 
"which  suddenly  is  expected  may  arrive."  A 
boat  had  meanwhile  been  sent  ashore  from  the 
Rose  frii'ate,  to  bring  ofi"  the  Governor.  But  as 
he  was  going  down  to  embark,  he  was  met  by  an 
armed  party  bearing  the  summons  from  those 
asse^nbled  at  the  Town-house.  Surprised  at  this 
demand  for  which  he  knew  "  noe  cause  or  ocea- 
**  sion,"  Andros,  with  several  attendants,  went  to 


z& 


meet  its  signers  at  the  Royal  Council  Chamber. 
As  he  passed  thither,  "  the  streets  were  full  of 
"  armed  men ;  yett  none  offered  him  or  those 
"that  were  with  him  the  least  rudeness  or 
"incivility,  but,  on  the  contrary,  usual  respect.'^ 
At  the  Council  Chamber,  where,  among  the 
civilians,  five  Boston  ministers  were  very  busy, 
the  G(nernor  was  ordered  by  the  conspirators  to 
be  imprisoned  along  with  Graham,  West,  Palmer, 
and  other  subordinates  of  the  Dominion.  But  the 
mutineers,  who  "broke  open  the  Secretary's 
"  office,"  missed  finding  "  Sir  Edmund's  papers  ;" 
and  the  Great  Seal  of  New  England  seems  also  to 
have  disappeared  at  this  time;  [Col.  Doc.  III., 
582,  723,  724;  Hutch.  Coll.,  567-575.)  ^ 

And  now  that  Andros  was  safely  in  jail,  the 
question  arose  how  the  Government  of  the  Do- 
minion of  New  P]ngland  was  to  be  lawfully 
administered.  Had  he  succeeded  in  his  attempt 
to  embark  on  the  Rose  frigate,  and  gone  in  her 
to  Newport  or  New  York,  the  course  of  subse- 
quent events  would  have  been  very  different. 
The  seat  of  the  New  England  Government  would 
have  been  changed  ;  but  the  government  itself 
w^ould  have  been  maintained.  This  made  the 
Massachusetts  insurgents  especially  anxious  to 
secure  the  person  of  Andros.  Under  the  King's 
commission,  Lieutenant-Governor  Nicholson  was 
to  succeed  his  chief  only  in  case  of  his  death  or 
absence  from  the  Territory.  The  Governor's 
forced  incapacity  had  not  been  contemplated. 
(Col.  JDoc.  III.,  542.)  Perhaps  the  imprisonment 
of  Andros  in  Massachusetts  did  not  strictly  en- 
title Nicholson  to  assume  the  government  of 
New  England.  Yet,  next  to  Andros,  he  was 
the  only  rojiresentative  of  the  English  crown 
who  had  any  right  from  that  crown  to  chief 
authority  in  the  Dominion.     Certainly,  uo  mal- 


ZT 


administration  could  be  alleged  against  Nichol- 
son, as  it  had  been  charged  against  Andros. 
But  those  who  imprisoned  their  Royal  Governor, 
meant  to  rend  consolidated  New  England  into 
pieces.  Their  act  was  only  "  secession."  Mas- 
sachusetts did  not  want  union  with  her  sister 
Colonies,  unless  she  could  control  that  union,  as 
she  had  controlled  the  New  England  Confederacy 
of  1643.  She  pined  for  the  separate  local  gov- 
ernment which  she  had  enjoyed  under  her  per- 
verted and  abrogated  charter.  It  was  very 
galling  to  her,  tliat,  in  common  with  neighbor- 
ing British  Colonies,  she  should  be  subjected  by 
her  Sovereign  to  the  authority  of  his  own  Gov- 
ernor-General. Although  but  a  subordinate  En- 
glish Colony,  without  a  charter,  she  determined 
to  secede  from  the  rest  of  New  England.  Ac- 
cordingly, a  Council  of  Safety  assumed  the 
direction  of  affairs  in  Massachusetts,  and  hast- 
ened to  withdraw  the  garrisons  which  Andros 
had  carefully  established  in  Maine.  The  last  Co- 
lonial charter  officers,  chosen  in  1686,  were  rein- 
stated, until  orders  should  come  from  England. 
On  the  twenty-ninth  of  May,  Pliipps  arrived  at 
Boston,  with  the  dispatches  addressed  to  Andros 
by  the  English  authorities  at  "Whitehall.  Find- 
ing that  the  Governor  was  in  prison,  Phipps 
opened  tlie  letters  directed  to  him ;  and  the  act- 
ing magistrates  of  Massachusetts,  the  same  after- 
noon, proclaimed  William  and  Mary,  according 
to  the  Privy  Council's  orders  to  Andros  of  nine- 
teenth February,  which  he  would  doubtless  have 
cheerfully  obeyed,  if  they  had  been  dispatched  to 
him  as  originally  intended.  [Col.  Doc.  III.j  572, 
583,  587,  588  ;  Chalmers,  /.,  431,  469.) 

Thus,  the  intrigue  begun  by  Phipps  and  Mather 
at  London,  was  completed  at  Boston.  Without 
the  knowledge  and  against  the  purpose  of  WiJ-* 


38 


liara,  his  Dominion  of  New  England — which 
had  hardly  lasted  eight  months  after  the  annex- 
ation of  New  York  and  New  Jersey — was  "  dis- 
"  united"  by  the  rebellious  secession  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  name  which  James  the  First  had 
given  survived  in  history  ;  but  the  consolidated, 
actual  New  England  of  James  the  Second  never 
more  existed.  And  thus,  Massachusetts  became 
the  first  practical  exponent,  on  the  American 
continent,  of  that  extreme  doctrine  of  "  State 
"Rights,"  which  afterwards  produced  so  much 
national  disorder.  The  Boston  notion  of  "  se- 
"  cession"  quickly  spread  throughout  the  other 
New  England  Colonies.  Plymouth — as  Wiswall 
wrote  to  Hinckley — did  not  like  "to  trot  after 
"  the  Bay  horse."'  {Mass.  H.  8.  Coll.,  xxxv.,  301.) 
Therefore,  Plymouth  set  up  again  her  old  Patent 
government ;  and  so  Plymouth  seceded  from  New 
England.  Rhode  Island  had  no  sympathy  with 
the  persecutors  of  Anne  Hutchinson  and  Roger 
Williams,  who  had  now  imprisoned  Andros;  yet, 
to  avoid  anarchy,  she  replaced  her  former  magis- 
trates under  her  charter  :  and  so  Rhode  Island 
seceded.  Connecticut — which  had  adroitly  co- 
quetted with  both  Massachusetts  and  New  York, 
and  did  not  wish  to  be  governed  by  either — 
boldly  resumed  her  charter  government;  and 
secef'sion  was  triumphant.  Before  the  summer 
of  1689,  "  New  England"  was  once  more  resolved 
into  her  several  constituent  Colonies. 

What  happened  in  New  York,  after  the  depo- 
sition of  Audros,  may  perhaps  be  detailed  on 
some  future  occasion. 

It  only  remains  to  be  observed  at  this  time, 
that  what  is  often  called  the"  Bevolution  in  New 
*^  Engl^md,''  in  the  spring  of  1689,  cannot  be 
justified  on  the  grounds  maintained  by  the  En- 
glish   nation,   which    after   the   abdication   of 


39 


James,  made  William  and  Mary  its  King  and 
Queen.  England  as  a  nation  had  all  the  attri- 
butes of  Sovereignty  ;  and  what  that  nation  did, 
required  no  confirmation  elsewhere.  On  the 
other  hand,  New  England  was  a  Colonial  de- 
pendency of  the  Mother  Country  ;  bound  to  follow 
the  fate  of  that  country,  as  long  as  "  the  Domin- 
"  ion  "  was  dependent.  In  none  of  the  mutinous 
movements  in  that  Dominion  was  there  any 
thought  of  making  any  one  of  its  constituent  col- 
onies independent  of  England.  On  the  contrary, 
the  foremost  insurgents  in  Massachusetts  most 
loudly  protested  their  subjection  to  English  au- 
thority, and  their  loyalty  to  "the  Crown  of  En- 
"  gland."  This  was  precisely  the  doctrine  of 
their  Governor  General,  whom  by  imprisoning, 
they  prevented  from  executing  the  orders  sent 
him  by  that  Crown.  If  they  had  meant  to  de- 
clare themselves  independent  of  the  Mother 
Country,  the  Massachusetts  mutineers  against 
Andros  had  a  perfect  right  to  revolt  from  En- 
gland ;  and  history  would  have  applauded  their 
rebellion.  They  might  have  failed  in  their  at- 
tempt at  that  time  ;  yet,  at  any  rate  they  would 
have  tried  to  vindicate  the  principle  of  man's 
right  to  self-government.  But  this  grand  idea 
was  not  the  Boston  notion  of  1689.  That  notion 
was  to  swing  Massachusetts  back  again  to  her 
former  condition  of  an  English  corporation,  so 
that  her  Puritan  ministers  might  control  a  col- 
onial oligarchy,  which  would,  among  other 
things,  evade  the  execution  of  the  English  navi- 
gation laws.  This  was  not  a  consistent  position 
for  a  subordinate,  loudly  loyal,  English  colony  to 
assume.  Yet  it  was  the  attitude  in  which  Mas- 
sachusetts placed  herself;  unsuccessfully  in  re- 
gard to  most  of  her  intended  objects.  There  can 
be  no  just  comparison  of  her  selfish  colonial  mu- 


40 


tiny  against  her  King's  subordinate  Governor  in 
1689,  with  her  grand  colonial  revolt  against  her 
King  himt>e]fin  177G.  The  one  was  a  double- 
dealing  insurrection  of  avowed  English  subjects  ; 
the  other  was  a  defiant  rebellion  of  American 
freemen,  who  boldly  renounced  their  allegiance 
to  England. 

But  history  tells  us  that  there  was,  at  least, 
one  common  cause  of  colonial  grief  in  both  these 
epochs.  The  oppressive  navigation  laws  of  En- 
gland, which  were  meant  to  cripple  all  colonial 
commerce,  had  much  to  do  with  the  deposition 
and  imprisonment  of  Andros.  And  here,  let  me 
say  that  those  laws  survived  until  the  spring  of 
1849,  when  they  were  finally  abolished  by  the 
British  Parliament,  mainly  through  the  per- 
sonal influence  and  exertions  of  that  eminent 
American  Historian,  now  an  officer  of  this  Socie- 
ty, wl»o  then  so  admirably  represented  his  coun- 
try in  England.  I  repeat,  that  those  English 
navigation  laws  had  much  to  do  with  the  New 
England  insurrection  of  1689  ;  as  they  had  much 
to  do  with  the  American  Revolution  of  1776. 
From  "the  common  gaole  in  Boston,"  on  the 
twenty  ninth  of  May,  1689,  Randolph,  the  im- 
prisoned Secretary  of  the  Dominion,  thus  wrote 
to  the  Plantation  Committee  at  London:  "  My 
"  LoKDS  :  Notwithstanding  all  the  pretensions 
"  of  grievances  mentioned  in  their  papers,  and 
"  cries  of  oppression  in  the  Governor's  proceed- 
"  ings,  it  is  not  the  person  of  Sir  Edmund  An- 
"  dros,  but  the  government  itself,  they  design  to 
"  have  removed,  that  they  may  freely  trade."  ( Col. 
Doc.  IIL,  581.) 


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